The good news is that the turnaround in Europe's 2nd wave has started, owing to aggressive mitigation action in many countries
But in the United States there is no sign of that whatsoever.
The response has been minimal to date, in select states. The only national plan is surrender
Every day a new record. A record of lack of will to take action, promote infections, hospitalizations, #LongCovid, and deaths in larger numbers of Americans.
150, 526 new infections today
67, 096 hospitalizations
1,104 deaths
A country positivity rate of 10.1% @COVID19Tracking
Look at the ascension in hospitalizations, adding >10,000 in a week, surpassing the first 2 surges, and no limit is sight.
It is *sickening* to see this level of spread and to know there is so much that can be done to mitigate it.
That doesn't require lockdowns. Targeted interventions with masks, distancing, crowd avoidance, selective closures.
Instead of watching and surrendering.
Progression to "uncontrolled spread" now in 48 states. It'll be 50 shortly. A country truly out of control, controlled by people @WhiteHouse who have no idea what they are doing.
A digital, real-time dashboard for covid—mobility, vulnerability, and detection of outbreaks early, would be important to pursue. Such a dashboard is mentioned in the Biden-Harris covid plan, but w/o any details. Here's another new paper nature.com/articles/s4156…@NatureHumBehav
The big news is that we have a #SARSCoV2 vaccine with a strong signal of efficacy. Perhaps as high as 90% with 94 events at an interim analysis. Well below 50-60% FDA/WHO threshold. That's exciting! wsj.com/articles/covid…
Oops. Above not below.
Application for FDA Emergency authorization can be filed when safety timetable is met. We'll have at least one vaccine into Phase 1a rollout before year end which is a stunning achievement-- from virus sequence to vaccination in < 12 months.
Not to detract from the celebration BUT
We just had >128,000 new US infections, another new record.
The hospitalizations continue to rise to almost 59,000 ()(~1,000 more since yesterday)
1,097 more people died. @COVID19Tracking
We have serious work cut out for us
We're about to go to a new pandemic peak in people hospitalized, >60,000
The rise in cases is limitless unless we take aggressive action, which of course should have been initiated months ago. But it's never too late.